Rosanno Home
Great Escape

A Massachusetts couple builds their home
overlooking protected wilderness.

As seen in the August 2008 issue of Log Home Living.

Story by: Margaret Foster
Photography by: Rich Frutchey
Home by: Grist Mill Log Homes and Real Log Homes

It was another Saturday night in their tiny apartment, and Bryan and Stacey Rossano channel-surfed to HGTV and a show about log homes. They paused. They watched the whole program. The next morning, they still had logs on the brain.

"We both love the outdoors," says Stacey. "We never knew anyone who built a log home, but we thought, 'Wow, maybe it's not that far out of our reach.'"

A few Google searches led the Rossanos to Real Log Homes, a manufacturer and designer that has been in business since 1963, and western Massachusetts dealer and builder Brooks Carswell of Grist Mill Log Homes. The couple clicked with him right away. "I have to admit, we decided to go with Brooks in the first five minutes," Bryan says. "He was very down-to-earth; he was real; he wasn't looking to sell us anything. He asked the right questions."

"Bryan and Stacey came to us with a rendition of a home they spotted in the Sunday paper," Brooks says. "They liked the home's exterior, so we worked with that to design the interior." In fact, most of Brooks' projects are customer-driven, he says. "It's very rare that we ever sell a standard house. We build custom homes, and all the woodwork is done from scratch - which is how we do pretty much everything."

Bryan & Stacey discovered a too-good-to-be-true piece of wooded property just outside Springfield, Massachusetts, and took Brooks to see the available lots. On a hike through the woods, Bryan was shocked that Brooks chose a heavily wooded, sloped lot. "I was in the scrub pines that were 8 feet tall. It was thick as fog; you couldn't see through them. And Brooks said, 'This is it.' I'm looking around, thinking, 'What the hell does he see that I don't?'"

What Brooks saw was the potential for a walkout basement on the sloped lot, which could double the size of their house. A conservation area sits behind their 7-acre property, so it will never be developed.

It was a challenging site, Brooks says, because it had to be cleared and blasted first. (The couple rolled up their sleeves and helped prepare the site, clearing and burning brush and later helping to stain the logs.) After a year, the house was finished - and within $400 of their budget, Bryan says. "I couldn't have asked for a better process."

Brooks, who keeps in touch with Bryan and Stacey, even contributed stone from his own property to the Rossano's fireplace and foundation, which complemented the rest of the rock, salvaged from long-forgotten stone walls across Vermont.

To furnish the house, Bryan and Stacey visited a Massachusetts antiques show, taking time to choose just the right pieces. "I wanted to get things with character," Stacey says. "Everything is kind of rustic. There's something really unique about old pieces."

Most nights, Bryan and Stacey turn on some music, drink a little wine and cook Cajun meals in their kitchen. "It's quiet, and that's what I've always wanted," Bryan says. I grew up in a neighborhood where there were maybe 10 feet between houses. Living here is like a permanent vacation."

Click here to watch a video about this beautifulReal™ log home!